On Labor Day weekend, Jessie and I went on a short trip “up north” to the Hoeft State Park.
We went up on Friday morning and back on Monday morning as early as we could to beat traffic.

On our way, we noticed a scary amount of Trump-supporting signs. In the upper parts of Michigan, they certainly are ubiquitous. In metro Detroit, I haven’t seen a single one in quite some time now. Thankfully, it’s mostly the metro area that is deciding the vote.

The park is very nice and clean, has all the necessary facilities and is located right at the beach. We went swimming a few times in the crystal clear water and I was surprised by the height of the waves that came up in the evening. It almost felt like swimming in the North Sea (only without all the salt).
Also, we noticed that there is quite some tide in the lake as well.

We had brought our bikes and rode them to the Rogers City which is a small town with 2500 citizens close to the park. Since their attractions were rather limited, we visited the local limestone quarry and had a Cappuccino, that was spelled Cappiccino, at the local café.

On Sunday, we went to Cheboygan which is the closest bigger city with 5000 citizens and about an hour away by car in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, the season there seems to be over and many of the places were already closed.

At least the local brewery was open and we got some of their beer to go.

My personal highlight of the trip was the fact that we had absolutely clear night skies and thanks to the great lake and the rural location almost no light pollution. Never in my life had I seen that many stars.

I probably spent an hour at the beach setting up long exposures and boring Jessie to death. There is still a lot to improve but I was very happy when I saw the milky way show up in the pictures. It was barely visible by the eye.